8/2-3/13 -- Into the lion's den, again: Blacksburg, Va.

This is a discussion on 8/2-3/13 -- Into the lion's den, again: Blacksburg, Va. within the Member Meeting Place forums, part of the The Back Porch category; Once again, we go into the lion's den of antis in SWVA -- albeit a different venue / event, this time.
Drop by and say ...

VCDL will have two spaces in Community Connections and we need volunteers to staff the spaces from 10:00 am until 8:00 pm each day. No experience necessary!

This event is very large and we will need 6-7 volunteers at a time to run things effectively. Please coordinate your shift with John Wilburn: john.wilburn@vcdl.org.

There will be a raffle for a Glock 19 with tickets sold at the event. Winner must be legally eligible and pass both federal and state background checks. Tickets are $3 each or two for $5 and the proceeds will benefit VCDL.

Follow-up

VCDL has a booth this year at a large event in Blacksburg called "Steppin' out."

At the event we've been handing out "Guns Save Lives" (GSL) stickers, membership applications, carry cards, and selling some raffle tickets for a Glock handgun. We paid for our booth and have carefully followed all the rules of the event.

Not so for the antis, of course. Upon seeing that VCDL had a booth and was raffling off a handgun, then antis showed up with a sign and a handout and tried to stand in front of our booth to block access - all of that without paying for a booth as we did.

I contacted management and got the antis moved away from our booth (although they were still in front of the booth holding up there sign protesting the raffle).

One of the antis, an older woman, came over and started yelling at one of our woman volunteers and then went over to one of the men, grabbed him, ripped off the GSL sticker he had on his shirt and threw it in his face!

Our member remained calm, but the woman really screwed up - the Blacksburg police had a booth across from us and a couple of officers witnessed the assault and battery. They immediately came over took the woman to their booth and detained her there while they checked to see if our member wanted to press charges against her.

In the end, our member opted not to press charges and the woman was released after being detained for about 15 minutes.

Actually the antis being there was a good thing - I hope they come back on Saturday. The fuss they made over our raffle got the event in the local news - free advertising we couldn't have bought at any price! We were swamped with people wanting to buy tickets. We had figured that we'd sell about 200 tickets over the entire two day event. We had sold that many before by 5 PM the first day! And with all the good press, I expect that today (Saturday) will be an incredible day, with thousands of stickers being handed out and hundreds of raffle tickets sold.

By far most people were supportive and it was a fun day, except for the occasional ranting antis who are willing to yell profanities in front of other people's children. A sad group of angry people.

DELEGATE YOST GOING SOFT ON GUNS?

In the Roanoke Times stories below, Delegate Yost, whose district is in the general area, seems to be distancing himself from gun rights and putting down VCDL. You may want to contact him and let him know his comments are not appreciated and that you expect him to fully support your right to keep and bear arms.

The VCDL booth at the Blacksburg "Steppin' Out" festival was a fantastic success! I want to thank all of our great volunteers for their tireless and professional promotion of VCDL at the festival.

Also, I would like to thank the antis! By protesting our booth, they brought us some great media coverage and instead of selling 300 tickets during the two-day show, we sold around 900 tickets, selling out all that we brought with us. Sadly, we had to turn some people away when the tickets ran out.

Our original plan was to finish selling the remaining tickets at various other events, but that's no longer necessary.

I hope the antis continue to protest us! All I ask is they remain peaceful and stop their attempts to intimidate others with violence. That we will not tolerate. The woman that attacked one of our members got extremely lucky that the member did not press charges. The antis had best not count on that kind of a break ever again.

A SPECIAL THANKS TO PAWN PLUS!

A very special thanks to Pawn Plus, 1695 N. Franklin Street, Christiansburg, VA, for the generous donation of the Glock handgun for VCDL to raffle!

AND HERE COME THE LOONS!

People are tired of the antis and their message of gun control they are trying to promote under the guise-du-jour of "gun safety."

The antis are desperate to be relevant and only have their emotions, and no logic or reason, to try to achieve that goal. Thus, they are constantly getting "offended" by one thing or another and screaming about it. All the antis are doing is attempting to use "political correctness" to control the First Amendment rights of groups like VCDL, while twisting the arms of gun-friendly politicians.

While the antis call us the "gun nuts," it is ironically they who are deeply fixated on guns. Six years after the tragedy at Virginia Tech, the antis are still trying to blame the exact make and model of the gun that Cho used to murder 32 innocent, helpless people in a gun-free zone. The antis have forgotten about Cho. They have forgotten about mental health issues. All that matters to them is the model number of the tool that a crazy man used, not the crazy man himself. That is, well, crazy.

The gun that was donated to VCDL was one of the most popular guns in America - both with the public and the police: the Glock Model 19. Sadly, that was the make and model of one of the two guns that Cho used. Both the Blacksburg Police and the Virginia Tech Police use Glocks and they are not being called "insensitive" by the antis.

In order to get some attention, the anti-gun loons, without so much as a shred of evidence, are trying to say that VCDL picked that particular gun ON PURPOSE to offend the citizens of Blacksburg.

Oh, baloney. That gun was agreed upon with the intent that we would sell raffle tickets for it at some events later in the month. The Model 19 was chosen for its popularity, as the fast sale of raffle tickets proved. To our pleasant surprise, we received the donation quicker than we thought we would! We had just enough time to squeeze the raffle into the Steppin' Out event and rushed to do so. The rest is now history.

Did we consider that that was the same model as the one that Cho used? No, it didn't even cross our minds as we don't tend to fixate on irrelevant trivia. It's time for the antis to stop squeezing that tragedy for everything that it's worth.

Here's a question for the loons: What would VCDL possibly have to gain by intentionally offending the citizens of Blacksburg?

And another couple of questions: if the citizens of Blacksburg felt that the Glock 19 was offensive, why did we sell 900 tickets and have to turn people away when we ran out? Why did we hand out thousands of "Guns Save Lives" stickers to people asking for them? Those stickers were on people everywhere you looked. No doubt there was a nice "bump" in attendance at Steppin' Out because of that raffle.

Let's go to the heart of the matter: the VCDL booth was constantly busy - we were a hit and it drove the antis nuts! People were so offended that there were NO protestors on Saturday. (The three or four antis on Friday only stayed until around 5 PM and disappeared. Meanwhile, VCDL members continued to run the VCDL booth on Friday until 8 PM, when we had to close and send those still wanting tickets and stickers away for the night.)

AND LET'S NOT FORGET SOME OF THE POLITICAL LOONS

Anti-liberty Democratic Senator Mark Herring, who is running against pro-liberty Senator Mark Obenshain to be Virginia's Attorney General, is sure sounding awfully shrill for a man:

The antis were complaining to the Steppin' Out management about VCDL's presence. Let's not take that laying down! Take a few seconds to contact the Steppin' Out management and let them know that you are pleased that VCDL was at the event.

I wanted to thank Downtown Blacksburg, Inc. for having the Virginia Citizens Defense League at the last "Steppin' Out" event! Their attendance was a great opportunity to reach out to the public in order to protect an important civil right.